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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8214068" data-attributes="member: 6779196">I use the planes a fair bit, but I also interpret them very differently than what’s canon. My setting used a variation on the World Axis cosmology - the World exists in the balance between the tumult of the Primordial Chaos and the stasis of the Astral Sea. It’s very rare that the PCs will actually travel to these places, but their influences can be felt strongly throughout the World.Parallel to the World is Faerie, which is a border plane between the Material plane and the planes of Fire, Earth, Water, Air, and Aether. These elemental planes arent exactly places, as much as they are states of being or “frequencies” within Faerie, accessed by attuning one’s self sympathetically to the appropriate element. Crossings to Faerie are more commonplace the further you get from civilization, to the point that one can easily end up wandering into Faerie by accident, and the line between “the Wild” and “Faerie” is pretty subjective.Beneath the surface of the World is the Underworld, though its status as a distinct plane is highly debatable (and indeed, hotly debated by scholars in-universe). Similarly to how one can end up crossing into Faerie entirely by accident when venturing far from civilization, one can end up in the Underworld by delving too greedily and too deep. And the farther down you go, the less like the World above your surroundings become. So one could reasonably surmise that the Underworld and Faerie are both parts of a single Otherworld. Indeed, one could make similar arguments about all of the elemental planes these worlds connect to. The Otherworld plays a role in most of my campaigns. Most dungeons are at least partially in the Underworld, and wilderness exploration often carries a risk of ending up in Faerie.Additionally, there’s the Abyss. Its precise place in the cosmos is not well understood, but the strongest theories draw parallels between the Abyss and the Primordial Chaos - the latter seems to exist at the farthest reaches of the elemental planes, and the former occupies a similar space in the deepest recesses of the Underworld (and maybe also the ocean...? Kos, or some say Kosm... do you hear our prayers?) It’s not common for PCs to visit the Abyss, but some especially deep megadungeons do connect to it.Finally, there’s the Far Realm. It exists beyond the stars - in fact, many believe the stars are holes in the cosmos, portals to this other place. It is not accessible from the World by any known means, though it is theorized that if one could build a vessel capable of sailing the Astral Sea far enough to reach the distant stars, one might be able to sail through one. For the most part though, the Far Realm’s influence is only felt by way of its Aberrant incursions.</blockquote>

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